Washington – Democrats poised to take control of Congress said Sunday they would press to begin a phased U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq within four to six months, part of an agenda aimed at overhauling key aspects of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

“First order of business is to change the direction of Iraq policy,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D- Mich., who is in line to become chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee next year.

Senior White House officials countered that setting timetables for U.S. troop withdrawals would weaken the Iraqi government and embolden insurgents, but they acknowledged a need for fresh ideas on Iraq and expressed a willingness to negotiate with Democrats on an array of foreign-policy issues.

White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten indicated on ABC that President Bush would block legislation that calls for a scheduled withdrawal.

“I don’t think we’re going to be receptive to the notion there’s a fixed timetable at which we automatically pull out, because that could be a true disaster for the Iraqi people,” Bolten said.

Even so, he said the White House was “willing to talk about anything” and was prepared to adjust tactics.

The developments came as Bush and members of his national-security team prepared to meet today with a panel of foreign-policy experts who have been charged with developing new proposals for how to proceed in Iraq. The panel is headed by James Baker III, who served as secretary of state when Bush’s father was president, and Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana who served as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The push for a phased pullout, an idea long rejected by the Bush administration, appears to be gaining momentum. Senior military officials recently have voiced increasing concern that the security benefits of keeping large numbers of troops in Iraq are outweighed by significant downsides of the heavy U.S. presence. Among them are a perceived reluctance of Iraqis to take the lead in stemming violence as long as U.S. forces are there.

“We have to tell the Iraqis that the open-ended commitment is over and that we’re going to begin to have a phased withdrawal in four to six months,” said Levin, who appeared on ABC’s “This Week.”

Levin was joined in his call for a phased pullout by Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who is in line to become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader in the Senate, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that decisions on troop drawdowns should rest with U.S. military officers in Iraq.

Still, Reid said “we need to redeploy” and that a withdrawal should start within several months.

Iraq was a key factor in Republican losses in last week’s election, with nearly six in 10 voters in exit polls saying they disapproved of the war and a majority calling for a withdrawal of some or all U.S. troops.

Even so, it’s unclear how far GOP lawmakers will go to challenge the White House and back calls for a drawdown.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Sunday he believed the United States needed to send more troops to Iraq to curb sectarian violence and reduce the influence of heavily armed Shiite militias.

“I believe that there are a lot of things that we can do to salvage this, but they all require the presence of additional troops,” he said on “Meet the Press.” “The question, then, before the American people is: Are we ready to quit? And I believe the consequences of failure are chaos in the region, which will spread.”

Members of both parties said they expect the Baker-Hamilton commission to recommend that the United States hold a conference with representatives from Iraq’s Middle East neighbors to seek greater cooperation in pacifying the country and creating a stable government.

Biden told ABC that Iran and Syria should be included in such a conference because of their influence in the region.

A proposal that calls for joint meetings with Syria and Iran would pose diplomatic problems for the Bush administration, which has labeled Iran as part of an “axis of evil” and has been reluctant to engage either country.

Bolten stopped short of rejecting such a conference but made it clear the White House didn’t believe dialogue with Iran and Syria would improve matters.

“I don’t think there’s been a communications problem; there’s been a cooperation problem,” he said. “Iran and Syria have been meddling in Iraq in a very unhelpful way.”

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